Crew training for 1st private flight to ISS starts

CAPE CANAVERAL: Training of the crew for the first entirely private trip to the International Space Station (ISS) is to begin soon, Axiom Space, the company behind the flight, said on Monday (Tuesday in Manila) at a joint press conference with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Four astronauts are to be launched to the ISS in late January aboard a rocket built by another space company, Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Only one of the four — NASA veteran Michael Lopez-Alegria — has been in space before.